Education & Experience

I received my Masters of Arts in Professional Counseling from Texas State University, with a focus on trauma and counseling women across the lifespan. I served as a Counseling Intern at Hays Caldwell Women’s Center (HCWC) where I provided counseling services for individuals who experienced sexual assault and/or domestic violence. In my time at HCWC I received extensive training on counseling and service needs for individuals who experienced trauma and completed the Office of the Attorney General Certified Sexual Assault Training Program. At HCWC and at the Phoenix Center, where I provided counseling services to adolescents, children, and families who had experienced trauma, I worked collaboratively with other counseling staff members and service providers in the broader community in order to evaluate client needs and strategize regarding the best ways to meet those needs from a holistic, systems perspective. During my counseling associateship I served as a therapist at Bloom Therapy where I focused on mindfulness and somatic healing techniques. 

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Prior to my time at Texas State I received a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from The University of California at Santa Barbara and a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard University. My doctoral work focused primarily on the ways that our understandings of religion and spirituality shape how we see ourselves and our world, and how those understandings and spiritual experiences can be both a wellspring of strength and the source of some of our deepest wounds.

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Approach

At the core of my counseling approach is a belief that we have the intuitive knowledge and capacity for self-healing. Various life experiences, messages that we hear from others about who we are and the world around us, and stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves can block this intuitive knowledge and cultivate doubt about our capacity to change the self and the systems of which we are part. I approach counseling as a safe space for locating in the mind, body, and spirit the sources of hurt, doubt, grief, and fear that are blocking your ability to experience healing, confidence, acceptance, and freedom.

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I work primarily from a Person Centered theoretical frame which means that I understand our relationship as the tool through which change occurs. The counseling relationship requires a desire to change, a belief (however small) that you have the capacity for change, and willingness to lean into the counseling relationship with trust that will be cultivated over our time working together. I also approach counseling with an overlay of a feminist lens that attends to issues of power, curiosity, and how we are shaped in relationship to others for individuals of all gender identities. I will bring to our counseling sessions mindfulness and experiential practices along with an effort to think together about the ways we can hold space and time in order to be present in our bodies and in the systems we are part of in order to cultivate and sustain the changes we intend to make in our lives.

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Finally, I have a deep commitment to meeting individuals where they are in their unique intersectional identities. I strongly believe in the mission to advocate for developing a professional counseling culture that better serves individuals with marginalized identities who may be hesitant to utilize counseling services. I understand diversity in a broad and inclusive context that encompasses both seemingly categorical identities (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, class, disability) and life experiences (e.g. addiction, physical health difficulties, trauma).

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